The Tour de Flatirons: High speed rock climbing in Boulder

Members of the Satan s Minions Scrambling Club dash up the First Flatiron during the 2005 Tour de Flatirons.

F or most of us, a major climb in the Flatirons like the First, the Third, the Slab or Seal Rock, for example, takes half a day -- or if we're really pushing it, a few hours.

But there's a lightning-fast group of Boulder-based runners and climbers who routinely climb astronomically faster than the rest of us.

These elite athletes, members of the so-called Satan's Minions Scrambling Club, treat the Flatirons like a vertical racetrack. Personal time trials are common year-round for the Minions, but once a year, Boulder's Bill Wright, 49 -- aka Satan, the club's leader -- organizes the fun, friendly and sometimes fierce Tour de Flatirons.

The Tour is an informal, multi-stage event that attracts only qualified (i.e., extremely fit, strong and competent) runners and climbers. It's not a race, per se, as competitions between four or more people are banned on Open Space land. It's more like a fun group challenge.

In the 2011 Tour, taking place this month, 10 athletes (give or take a few per race) time themselves on the east faces of five major Flatirons in as many weeks: the Third, the Slab, the Fifth, the First and the Front Porch.

Each of these Flatirons requires an uphill run of up to a mile, about 1,000 feet of easy rock climbing (that the Minions do in running shoes with sticky rubber -- and no rope) and a hair-raising sprint down steep, rocky trails back to the trailhead.

The first Tour de Flatirons took place in 2003, but its roots go back to 1998, when Wright, the unofficial keeper of local speed records, heard that somebody had climbed the Third Flatiron in 60 minutes round-trip from Chautauqua.

He thought, "That can't be right. It's eight pitches of climbing!"

Motivated by the seemingly impossible one-hour mark, Wright asked some friends to join him for a sprint up the Third. It was so much fun that it became an annual tradition.

Dave Mackey, of Boulder, is a climber and one of the fastest trail runners in the U.S. He holds the current round-trip record for the Third Flatiron (with a pre-rigged rappel line for a safer descent) of 33 minutes and 17 seconds (!!), which he set in 2008.

The record for the First Flatiron stands at a little more than 33 minutes also, and is held by Boulder's Stefan Griebel, 36, an electrical engineer.

Griebel has climbed the First more than 150 times and can down-climb from the summit to the ground -- something that takes most competent rock climbers at least 10 minutes -- in fewer than 90 seconds. Griebel has run every Tour de Flatirons and is its only three-time champion.

But even more important than the seemingly super-human speed records is the fun.

Tony Bubb, 39, is an engineer from Erie who has run all of the Tours. He emailed, "I'm not trying to break any records, so I run it for fun." The Tours made Bubb realize that it's perfectly reasonable to climb a Flatiron on any given day and still be at work by 9 a.m.

Jon Sargent, 35, a business attorney in Boulder, has also run every Tour, taking the title in 2004.

He echoed Bubb's perspective, "The Tour has opened my eyes to how quickly you can go out and do some of the different Flatirons. But more than anything else, it's just fun to get out and scramble with friends."

I asked him about his goal for this year's five-stage Tour. He said with a laugh, "Don't hurt myself."

Indeed, flying up and down the Flatirons carries plenty of risk. Sprained ankles, cuts and bruises are often incurred on the semi-controlled dash back down the trail. But so far, there's never been a serious injury during the Tour.

Wright said, "Before the start, I remind everyone about the first rules of these events: no falling, no dying. Everyone agrees that these are good rules."

And like Bubb and Sargent, Wright's favorite part of the event is the camaraderie.

"Everybody is just trying to do his or her best," he said.

While most of us prefer to amble up our backyard rocks without a stopwatch, Wright's goal for this year's Tour is to break 40 minutes on either the First or the Third, which he's done once or twice in the past.

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